Stop the Presses: October

Preview
| 03 Oct 2011

Artists & Designers: Fruit Tree Foundation Needs You!

You may recall that last year the Fruit Tree Foundation brought together a stellar array of Scottish songwriting and recording talent to make an album and series of gigs in support of the Mental Health Arts and Film Festival. You should do, we put them on the cover and the music that came out of the project was braw. Well, this year they’ve expanded the project, and are creating a mentoring programme bringing together three unsigned and three established songwriters (James Yorkston, Withered Hand and Rod Jones) to collaborate in the studio, record and perform their work. All three of the successful applicants, and their mentors, will perform at a Fruit Tree Foundation gig in Edinburgh on 20 October. An EP featuring a song by each of the Fruit Tree mentees will also be available to download from The Skinny website.

You’ll be able to read all about it (including exclusive access to the recording sessions themselves) in an upcoming issue of The Skinny. In the mean time, the Fruit Tree Art Department are looking for a bit of help with the artwork for the EP.

Says Fruit Tree’s Astrid Johnston, “We are inviting you to play ‘consequences’ aka ‘heads, bodies and legs’ with a fruit tree, and then send us your version of one section of the tree. Three of the entries will be put together to form a whole tree and used for the EP; we’ll have a gallery with all the ‘consequences’ on The Skinny website.”

Which section of the fruit tree? Take the second digit of your age and look at the groups below. If the second digit is zero then use the first digit instead.

Ages ending in: 1, 4, 7 - The top of the tree

Ages ending in: 2, 5, 8 - The middle of the tree

Ages ending in: 3, 6, 9 - The bottom of the tree (and any roots - up to you).

Anyone can apply as long as they’re over 16. The deadline is the 13 October. Full details can be found at http://bit.ly/mYjlCu

The Skinny Food and Drink Survey:The Skinny launched a survey last month to find out what your favourite places to eat and drink are but neglected to include a link due to some level of confusion on the part of the editorial team. Sorry if we made you confused too. If you would like to have your voice heard in the all-out battle for the crown of Scotland’s Best Place To Eat [Insert Category Name Here], go to bit.ly/skinnyfood and fill in as many of the questions as you would like. As our Food editor Peter said, “Over the next few months you will have a low statistical chance of affecting our content by telling us about your favourite food and drink destinations across the country.”

This month’s cover shot was taken in the Science Museum in London. Thank you, The Science Museum, for being so accommodating and letting us capture such a lovely set of photos. And for teaching us about the world, also.

Screen Banditas Go West– The Screen Banditas, saviours of abandoned 16mm film, make their way to the CCA in Glasgow on 1 Oct for an evening of archive film and minimal psychedelia in collaboration with Long + Wrong, supporters of Scotland's experimental, improvised and electronic music communities

West Port Book Festival has just launched its programme – go to westportbookfestival.org/programme to find out more of what lies in store. Events range from poetry readings to tea dances. They’re running from 13-16 October, across a collection of nine booksellers and one bookbinder in Edinburgh’s West Port.

Ghostbusters– As anyone who grew up in the 80s knows, bustin’ makes you feel good. So Park Circus’ rerelease of Ghostbusters in time for Halloween is enough to make film geeks across the land shoot ectoplasm. But remember, don’t cross the streams...